Singer Martina McBride has signed up to move from Big Machine Records' Republic Nashville label to the Nash Icon joint venture Big Machine has with Cumulus Media. Reba McEntire and Robbie Dunn have previously signed on with the label, which was formed this spring.

There were murmurs that the departure of Clay Travis from 104.5's ratings monster, 3HL, would torpedo the show's numbers. The Cumulus station brought back Mickey Ryan to sit in Travis' seat alongside Brent Dougherty and Blaine Bishop.

Now with a month of ratings post-Travis in the books, the speculation that the change would threaten the show's dominance looks to have been unfounded:

Lew Dickey and his executive team at Cumulus Media are pushing hard to grow their new NASH country music brand on a number of fronts. Jessica Nicholson at Music Row has gathered some details — including digital video, an app and a magazine that will begin to stand on its own next year — from Cumulus' recent Q2 conference call.

Cumulus Media is taking a number of steps to build out the platform for the Nash country music brand it launched last year. It is partnering with Country Weekly to insert a 16-page section in that magazine — word has it that will be followed by the purchase of a 50 percent stake in the pub — and eyeing big expansions into television, satellite radio and the concert business.

Thom Abraham has departed his gig as the afternoon anchor on SportsRadio 560 WNSR in favor of a similar slot on two Alabama stations owned by Cumulus. In a statement, the parties say Abraham will continue to host specialty shows on WNSR, including Titans and Vanderbilt football content. WNSR has replaced Abraham with Chris Lee and the tag team of Matt Segal and Jeff Diamond.

Radio player Cumulus Media is buying Dial Global, a New York-based content distributor, for $260 million. Dial, which is majority-owned by two private-equity firms, runs nine regional offices around the country, including on Music Square West. Here is MusicRow's take on the deal, which was first reported by the Journal.